Lewisburg, PA, June 4, 2011 – The Samek Art Gallery at Bucknell University is very pleased to announce that we will not be presenting the augmented reality artwork of the art collective, MANIFEST.AR from June 4 through November 27, 2011. This collective, famous for using augmented reality technology to "hijack" an exhibition at MOMA in 2010, has focused its latest intervention on an even bigger art world target, the 2011 Venice Biennale. From the collective’s Venice Biennale AR Intervention manifesto,

"As 'one of the world's most important forums for the dissemination and 'illumination' about the current developments in international art' the 54th Biennial of Venice could not justify its reputation without an uninvited Manifest.AR Augmented Reality infiltration. In order to 'challenge the conventions through which contemporary art is viewed' we have constructed virtual AR pavilions directly amongst the 30-odd buildings of the lucky few within the Giardini. In accordance with the "ILLUMInations" theme and Bice Curiger's 5 questions our uninvited participation will not be bound by nation-state borders, by physical boundaries or by conventional art world structures."

The Venice Biennale has not invited MANIFEST.AR to exhibit these artworks. The Samek Art Gallery has invited the artists to not exhibit the works. MANIFEST.AR’s Venice Biennale 2011 AR Intervention descends from the artistic lineage of Salons des Refusés and Institutional Critique. This project imbues healthy critique with a sense of play and offers a new lens through which to view questions of absence and presence, of center and periphery. Artists from Marcel Duchamp to Michael Asher to Andrea Fraser have shown that when an artist gestures beyond the limits of the current art world, they do not leave that world behind; instead they expand its borders. MANIFEST.AR is expanding the art world in a discursive sense as well as technologically and spatially.

The Samek Art Gallery is closed for the summer; please do not visit looking for these groundbreaking artworks. They are not here* The Gallery will also not be hosting a gala dinner at the Cipriani Hotel in Venice to honor the artists. * While they are not inside The Gallery, these artworks have been dropped off, virtually, outside the doors of The Gallery and they have spilled out of the building across the Bucknell University campus. To view these artworks on-site, follow the instructions below. These artworks can be viewed from only two places on Earth: Venice, Italy and Lewisburg, PA. They can be not viewed from anywhere.

Augmented RealityUnlike Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality is the art of overlaying virtual content on top of physical reality. Using AR apps on smart phones, viewers look at the real world around them through their phone’s camera lens, while the app inserts additional images or 3D objects into the scene. For instance, a plaza that is “in reality” empty, might contain a crystal coffin or psychotropic toad when viewed through an AR-enabled Smartphone.MANIFEST.AR writes, “The increased availability of free Augmented Reality viewers on mobile phones has brought this technology out of the lab and created a participatory form of mass media.”

InstructionsThe AR artworks can only be seen in Venice or Lewisburg in the display of a smartphone using the free Layar augmented reality browser:- on a smartphone (Android, or iPhone 3GS or higher) - go to the web page http://www.willpap-projects.com/AR/Web_APP/Not_Here_Launch_App.html-then select an artwork, then launch - (if Layar is not installed, select “Download app” first)

About the Samek Art GalleryThe Samek Art Gallery is an academic art laboratory that serves the students, the university community and region through innovative exhibitions and programming that focuses primarily on the art of our time. The Gallery organizes diverse and interdisciplinary programs of noteworthy art, artists, scholars and critics from around the US and the globe. The Gallery is open to the public seven days a week during the academic year, with the exceptions of university recesses and between exhibitions. Exhibitions and programs are free and open to the public.

Gallery LocationSamek Art GalleryBucknell UniversityLewisburg, PA 17837The Samek Art Gallery is located in the heart of Bucknell University’s campus, on the third floor of the Elaine Langone Center, on the corner of Moore Street and Seventh Avenue.

Samek Art Gallery Bucknell University Lewisburg, Pennsylvania 17837 United States of America

Richard Rinehart is the Director of the Samek Art Museum at Bucknell University. Previous to holding his position at Bucknell, Richard was the Digital Media Director and Adjunct Curator at the UC Berkeley Art Museum/Pacific Film Archive. Richard has taught digital art studio and theory at UC Berkeley in the Center for New Media and Art Practice departments. He has also been visiting faculty at the San Francisco Art Institute, UC Santa Cruz, San Francisco State University, Sonoma State University, and JFK University. Richard sits on the Executive Committee of the UC Berkeley Center for New Media and has served on the Board of Directors for New Langton Arts in San Francisco. Richard manages research projects in the area of digital culture, including the NEA-funded project, 'Archiving the Avant Garde', a national consortium of museums and artists distilling the essence of digital art in order to document and preserve it. Richard is a new media artist whose art works, papers, projects, and more can be found at http://www.coyoteyip.com